Further Reading

Federal prosecutors allege that Shamo and his accomplices pressed hundreds of thousands of counterfeit pills in the basement of Shamo’s suburban Salt Lake City home and sold them on the dark Web to customers all across the US, making millions in the process. The pills resembled prescription opioid painkillers, such as oxycodone, but they were actually fakes laced with the highly potent and deadly opioid fentanyl, which Shamo allegedly imported from China illegally.

Prosecutors linked the pills to dozens of customer deaths, according to the Associated Press. However, Shamo is charged in connection to only one death, that of a 21-year-old who died in 2016 after snorting a fentanyl-containing pill that was made to resemble prescription oxycodone.

Fentanyl is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Public health experts at the agency say that illicit forms of the drug—such as the pills in Shamo’s case—have largely driven a massive third wave of opioid overdose deaths in the country. Overdose deaths involving synthetic opioids other than methadone (largely fentanyl) surged almost 47% from 2016 to 2017, killing 28,400 people in 2017.

The case against Shamo follows a crackdown on the influx of Chinese fentanyl by US federal prosecutors. In October of 2017, for instance, the Department of Justice indicted two men in China for selling fentanyl directly to US customers. In January of 2018, a congressional report highlighted the problem, noting how easy it was for Americans to have fentanyl shipped directly to them from China.

Cash and pills

The case against Shamo began to come together in June 2016 when US customs agents intercepted a package of fentanyl allegedly addressed to someone receiving it on Shamo’s behalf. After that, agents intercepted additional fentanyl shipments from a Chinese company called Express, which federal prosecutors are also investigating.

Further Reading

Federal prosecutors allege that once Shamo and his accomplices received the fentanyl, they cut the powder with fillers and dyes and pressed them into pills that resembled prescription drugs. They then allegedly sold them on a dark Web marketplace called Pharma-Master, which sometimes processed 20 to 50 orders a day.

At the end of 2016, federal investigators nabbed a single day’s worth of outgoing packages from Shamo’s alleged operation. The 52 packages shipped on one day included 35,000 fentanyl-laced pills in total. A single package in that collection was estimated to have a wholesale value of $400,000. The packages were addressed to homes in 26 states.

When federal agents raided Shamo’s home later in 2016, they found a pill press still running in the basement and more than $1 million in cash stuffed into garbage bags.

Shamo’s family says that he is being unfairly singled out in the case and that others involved were more deeply involved but are now getting off easier.

“He was brought in and saw the opportunity for making money, and he didn’t truly understand the danger behind what he was doing, how dangerous the drugs were,” Shamo’s father Mike Shamo told the AP. “I think he was able to separate what he was doing because he never saw the customer. To him, it was just numbers on a screen.”

Shamo’s family says that he is being unfairly singled-out in the case and that others involved were more deeply involved but are now getting off easier.

Uh, IT WAS IN HIS BASEMENT.

Quote:

He was brought in and saw the opportunity for making money, and he didn’t truly understand the danger behind what he was doing, how dangerous the drugs were

Yeah, most normal 'opportunities for making money' involve keeping a million dollars in garbage bags in your basement.

/facepalm

This is complete bullshit. If he "didn't understand how dangerous the drugs were" he'd be dead. If they handled straight fentanyl powder in a carefree way, I guarantee 1000000% they'd have OD'd off powder in the air, through skin, etc.

At the end of 2016, federal investigators nabbed a single day’s worth of out-going packages from Shamo’s alleged operation. The 52 packages shipped on one day included 35,000 fentanyl-laced pills in total. A single package in that collection was estimated to have a wholesale value of $400,000.

Sounds like cop math. If one package had 34,948 pills and the other 51 packages had one pill each, that puts the “wholesale” value of a fentanyl pill at $11.50 each.

At the end of 2016, federal investigators nabbed a single day’s worth of out-going packages from Shamo’s alleged operation. The 52 packages shipped on one day included 35,000 fentanyl-laced pills in total. A single package in that collection was estimated to have a wholesale value of $400,000.

Sounds like cop math. If one package had 34,948 pills and the other 51 packages had one pill each, that puts the “wholesale” value of a fentanyl pill at $11.50 each.

I'm not understanding what the package pill count has to do with anything?

Basically saying 35,000 pills equals about $400K

From research I've done in the past regarding DNM's, $11 a piece for these is actually quite low. The majority of these sell for 20-30$ list price. I am sure that goes down if bought in bulk, however, an $11 per pill is actually low for "cop math".

Shamo’s family says that he is being unfairly singled-out in the case and that others involved were more deeply involved but are now getting off easier.

Ah, the classic "but others are even worse" pseudo-defense. Has that ever worked?

Sure it has, you just have to pay attention to the business model your crime uses. If, instead of running it out of his basement, he had established a corporation, found a few investors, rented a production facility and played nice with the Feds, he could have cleared more cash for the same body count. With the added bonus that he'd still be in business.

Shamo’s family says that he is being unfairly singled-out in the case and that others involved were more deeply involved but are now getting off easier.

Uh, IT WAS IN HIS BASEMENT.

Quote:

He was brought in and saw the opportunity for making money, and he didn’t truly understand the danger behind what he was doing, how dangerous the drugs were

Yeah, most normal 'opportunities for making money' involve keeping a million dollars in garbage bags in your basement.

/facepalm

Amateurs.

Actually, what you do is collect it in a storage unit until you have about $80 million, then put into 55 gallon barrels and bury them in the desert. But before you do that you need to pull a Scrooge McDuck.

At the end of 2016, federal investigators nabbed a single day’s worth of out-going packages from Shamo’s alleged operation. The 52 packages shipped on one day included 35,000 fentanyl-laced pills in total. A single package in that collection was estimated to have a wholesale value of $400,000.

Sounds like cop math. If one package had 34,948 pills and the other 51 packages had one pill each, that puts the “wholesale” value of a fentanyl pill at $11.50 each.

I'm not understanding what the package pill count has to do with anything?

Basically saying 35,000 pills equals about $400K

From research I've done in the past regarding DNM's, $11 a piece for these is actually quite low. The majority of these sell for 20-30$ list price. I am sure that goes down if bought in bulk, however, an $11 per pill is actually low for "cop math".

They didn’t say 35,000 pills has a wholesale value of $400,000. They said once 35,000 pills were divided into 52 packages, one of those 52 packages had a wholesale value of $400,000. And while a pill might have a street value of $20 or more, that’s a retail price, not a “wholesale” price, whatever that is.

[edit: the point here is don’t trust cops to accurately portray the scope or scale of drug activities. It’s actually pretty plausible that one of the packages has 17,500 pills and the cops assumed a value of $20/pill. But, first, it’s completely inaccurate to call that a wholesale price. $400,000 gets you multiple kilos of pure fentanyl on the whole sale market. Second they’re trying to make the impression that $400,000 is only a small fraction of the value of the day’s revenue. This aspect isn’t exactly inaccurate, but the way it’s presented is misleading.

These guys really do seem to be serious drug dealers who probably killed multiple people, so I don’t want to make too much light of this complaint. But ridiculous shit like this

Shamo’s family says that he is being unfairly singled-out in the case and that others involved were more deeply involved but are now getting off easier.

Ah, the classic "but others are even worse" pseudo-defense. Has that ever worked?

It doesn't work legally, but it's often a fair argument. I don't think you can excuse or defend knowingly manufacturing and selling fentanyl, but in a lot of cases that argument at least holds moral water.

Like the guy selling drugs on the corner who thinks he's selling oxy's but it turns out they're laced, is he morally culpable because he was selling dangerous drugs in the first place? Some people would argue yes, but some would argue that he is merely a result of our fucked up system that gets people severely addicted, prices those addictions into bankruptcy territory, and leaves people with such little opportunity and social mobility that illegal drug dealing seems appealing.

Again, I think this guy is a piece of shit since he was actually tricking people into believing the fentanyl was something else, but in a lot of situations I would argue that the "others are worse" / "others are actually the root problem" is valid in a moral context and should be more valid in a legal one.

Ah the old "But what about the other evil people" defense. I'm sure the victims relatives will be consoled by the fact that there were other evil people doing similar things.... Hopefully, the jury will see through that BS.

Fentanyl is extremely widely used in modern medicine. Anesthiologists use it. Pain physicians use it. It is a safe and effective medicine when used properly. Its simple molecule and extreme potency are what make it the darling of the dark net. Its easy to make and easy to smuggle.

Fentanyl is a great rapid-onset analgesic, and when used in conjunction with midazolam makes for an easily-titratable cocktail for painful procedures. Very probably reduced more fractures and dislocations and put in more chest tubes with fentanyl/midazolam than I have with ketamine or propofol, for a variety of reasons.

Fentanyl is a perfectly cromulent opioid. Lots of legitimate uses. Safer for cardiac patients than other potent opioids because it causes less cardiac depression. Rapid and short acting - which is nice in a controlled medical setting but makes it even more addicting than other opioids (think crack vs. 'normal' cocaine).

The problem with fentanyl (and carfentanyl) is two fold. First, it's easy to synthesize (for qualified organic chemists, it's not a kitchen drug like meth). If you can get industrial quantities of precursor chemicals without alerting the Authorities (like, apparently in China) then you can create it with a minimum of fuss. Easy to transport commercial quantities inside tiny little objects of commerce like pretty much anything shipped from China (or wherever).

It is also incredibly potent. Like the fatal dose is in micrograms. This has a number of interesting ramifications. First off, handling bulk quantities needs to be done with the same attention and care used for handling other highly toxic chemicals. Attention and care that are not typically in the skill sets of the drug underworld.

If you don't know the EXACT purity of the drug and the EXACT weight (or volume) then it's easy to be in a situation that you are distributing toxic levels to your customers. Daniel the Dealer neither knows or cares much about that. So it's easy to sell pills that are supposed to have, say 50 micrograms of the drug ( a pretty good buzz) with something that has several hundred (which will kill you).

One interesting ramification of this is that users are now 'testing' new shipments with diluted doses to make sure they don't over dose.

Ah the old "But what about the other evil people" defense. I'm sure the victims relatives will be consoled by the fact that there were other evil people doing similar things.... Hopefully, the jury will see through that BS.

I’m not defending this guy, anyone who presses narcotic tablets in his basement and sells them should go to jail for a long time. But c’mon, the “victims” illegally purchased narcotics via the web and then abused them. They are just as much at fault for the horrendous outcome.

If the drugs weren't addictive, you'd have half a point. But they are. Addictive drugs interfere with people's free will in a way that's frightening. The people who market and profit off them should be held accountable.

Your post is half a step from saying it's ok to kill addicts. That isn't cool.

In a clinical setting, like surgery, Fentanyl's actually one of the safer opioids. It has a very high therapeutic index (ratio of deadly dose to effective dose, more or less). It requires high precision measurements for dosing because of the potency, but that's not really a problem when it's arriving pre-measured from a legit professional lab.

Fentanyl is a perfectly cromulent opioid. Lots of legitimate uses. Safer for cardiac patients than other potent opioids because it causes less cardiac depression. Rapid and short acting - which is nice in a controlled medical setting but makes it even more addicting than other opioids (think crack vs. 'normal' cocaine).

The quick onset and rapid termination of effect is one reason (two reasons?) it's used for epidurals.

It's also been know to have been used lately during a war games exercise in the UK where something appears to have gone wrong, ending up with the chief nurse of the British army tending aid and calling in real rescue.In fact Fentanyl has become such an epidemic in the UK that the emergency services routinely practise a standard operating procedure for dealing with it, and it's quite dramatic, full on hazmat suits, quarantine, and a thorough clean up and sterilisation of the area where an incident occurred to remove all traces of any Fentanyl in excreted fluids.